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China’s Silicon Valley Dream Bumps Against Reality

104 points by raleighm 8y ago

janekm 8y ago
I think the article could have benefited from some info on the efforts the Shenzhen government has been making on addressing the concerns raised, including setting up the Hong Kong University Hospital in Shenzhen branch and the giant "Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone", a free trade area in Shenzhen with corporate law based on Hong Kong's and very attractive tax benefits. Whether that's enough to assuage Hong Kong'ers cynicism is a different matter, of course ;)
- baybal2 8y ago
  A thing about healthcare in China: while it is expensive on average, some serious interventions can be up to 20 times cheaper (cancer surgeries, complex fractures and soft tissue trauma, etc.) Emergency medicine is priced predatory though, in bigger cities, appendicitis can cost you $15k+. I myself don't understand American obsession with healthcare, they are free to go anywhere in the world, and it will be cheaper for you than back home.
  - abrichr 8y ago
    I don’t have numbers handy, but IIRC a startling number of Americans have never left the country. It’s prohibitively expensive and simply out of reach for many (most?) people.
    - Spearchucker 8y ago
      Flying domestic in the US is crazy expensive when compared with budget airlines in Europe, where (if you look out for it) you can get a flight from London to Rome for £40. International from/to the US is pretty much the same as everyone else in the world pays. This is based on my experience paying for and flying to 32 countries, many more than once. My understanding about why Amercians don't fly international is the same as the UK used to be - not many even have a passport, and even less have an interest in cultures other than their own. For these last two comments I have no data, only hearsay.
      - free652 8y ago
        >Flying domestic in the US is crazy expensive when compared with budget airlines in Europe, where (if you look out for it) you can get a flight from London to Rome for £40. Its $60 for EWR-ATL and I didn't even look hard. $260 EWR-SFO and that's a 5 hour flight.
        jedmeyers 8y ago
        And KEWR-KATL is 650 nm direct and EGLL-LIRF is slightly over 780 nm. People forget how big the US is. Some states can really be considered separate countries by european standards.
        learc83 8y ago
        Here's a map to illustrate the point. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8fscnh/european_states_overlaid_to_the_map_of_us/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8fscnh/european_st...
      - dx87 8y ago
        I don't think it's necessarily that we have less interest in cultures besides our own, it's more that we usually plan vacations around wanting to see something, like a national monument, or do something, like party at Mardi Gras. Combine that mindset with the fact that the USA is so big, and there isn't much of a reason to ever leave the country because you'll never be able to see everything it has to offer, plus you don't have to pay to fly across the ocean. And yeah, I personally don't know anyone with a passport, it seems pretty rare here. I think one reason might be because of our neighboring countries. Until a couple of years ago, Canada didn't require a passport or visa when crossing our border, and Mexican border towns have been viewed as unsafe for as long as I can remember, so people didn't really go to Mexico except by cruise ships.
        Canada 8y ago
        It was more than 10 years ago that all changed. Not only that, US immigration officers even had personal discretion to let us in without proof of citizenship at all, and I'm pretty sure it was the same going North. Sucks how things are now, it just seems unnecessary to me.
    - ekianjo 8y ago
      > It’s prohibitively expensive I understand they may think it is, but it's not. And certainly cheaper than having to pay for healthcare back in America for any serious intervention.
      - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
        There are a lot of Americans who never set foot outside their own state.
        qubax 8y ago
        That's simply not true. Most americans have traveled outside of their own state. Like 90% of americans. And the 10% who haven't are mostly young children.
        learc83 8y ago
        The best estimate I can find for that is around 10%, which is also about the same percentage of people who have never left the UK.
    - astura 8y ago
      How is it startling? Some people don't care to leave the country? So what if it's not their thing? Not everyone cares to travel and even if you do, there is a million places to travel within the US, you'll never get bored, there is always something new to see. Why does it bother you that people enjoy doing different things than you in their free time? It's not cost prohibited, discount airlines like Norwegian Air and Air Lingus run non-stop flights from the East coast to Europe for $100-$300. Flights to the Caribbean are not more expensive than domestic flights.
      - alexhutcheson 8y ago
        Cost prohibitive is relative. Flying anywhere is cost prohibitive for a lot of families in the US. Buying 4 or 5 airline tickets gets expensive fast, even on low-cost airlines. The median family vacation in the US is probably a car trip to a destination within 4-5 hours of where the family lives. This isn't as relevant for people without families, but many of them tend to be early in their career, so money and vacation time are bigger constraints.
        astura 8y ago
        Not buying it. Median family income in households with children in the US is ~$80,000/year, mean is ~$100,500/year[1]. That's enough to afford $1,000 in airline tickets if you wanted to. Millions of people fly to kid-centric destinations like Orlando, Florida a year, and Orlando is incredibly cheap to fly to. It also amazes me how many people bring children on cruises and they even have kid centric cruises. The cost to fly is also at a historic low.[2][3] I see routes I took 10 years ago not increase in price since then. Most people I know are not "travel people" and wouldn't take a "travel vacation" if it was free, so they are not buying airline tickets. Just cuz they aren't buying airline tickets doesn't mean that can't afford them if they wanted to. My point was, if you're going to get onto an airplane it doesn't have to cost you significantly more to travel to a foreign country. Also traveling abroad isn't exactly something one "should" do, some people just don't want to. [1] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-families.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p... [2] https://www.cntraveler.com/story/average-domestic-airfares-near-record-lows https://www.cntraveler.com/story/average-domestic-airfares-n... [3] https://sfgate.com/chris-mcginnis/article/Hawaii-South-Africa-fares-hit-historic-lows-13015004.php https://sfgate.com/chris-mcginnis/article/Hawaii-South-Afric...
    - qubax 8y ago
      > It’s prohibitively expensive and simply out of reach for many (most?) people. No it isn't. It's just that we have a huge country stretching from the western pacific ( guam, hawaii, etc ) to the arctic (alaska ) to the caribbean ( puerto rico ). We have a variety of cultures, regions, natural wonders and peoples than any country in the world. Most americans can afford to travel overseas. But we have so many options within the US and its more convenient. Traveling from NYC to hawaii is far more impressive than traveling from NYC to London. And we have the grand canyon, mount denali, yosemite, yellowstone, florida, mount rushmore, new orleans, texas, chicago, endless list of places to visit. Most people, not just americans ) would explore their own nation first and then see the rest of the world. It's generally europeans who brag about traveling and yet they mostly travel between tiny european countries. What's so impressive about someone in luxembourg traveling to france, germany and belgium in an afternoon? It isn't that impressive. But they could claim to have traveled to 3 countries even though those countries are pretty much the same as luxembourg. To put this into perspective, the distance from moscow to berlin is 1100 miles. The distance from NYC to LA is 2700 miles. We just have a lot more land, lot more culture, lot more places to visit.
      - roel_v 8y ago
        "We just have a lot more land, lot more culture" LOL. You know the difference between America and yoghurt, right?
        qubax 8y ago
        Sure do. And I know we have a lot more diverse culture than say sweden or spain or any european country. Maine to NYC to new orleans to texas to california to the midwest to las vegas and throw in puerto rico, alaska and hawaii. Feel free to show me another country that can match the diversity of peoples, cultures and land that the US has. LOL. Show me another country with the grand canyon, rocky mountains, yosemite, yellow stone park, etc. I love people who laugh at american culture and yet watch our movies, tv shows, listen to our music, etc. So thumb your nose at us while listening to rock n roll, jazz, hip hop, techno, etc and watching game of thrones, friends, southpark, etc. I gave an honest answer to why americans don't travel to foreign countries as much. It's because the US is the size of a continent. We have a lot of things to see here. We can literally travel thousands of miles and still be in the same country. In europe, you can drive through 3 countries in an hour.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Health insurance in China is often flipped compared to how it works in the rest of the world, and definitely America. Instead of having a deductible, you have a benefit cap ($100k for the policy I got working for Microsoft). So the routine stuff winds up being very cheap to free, and the catastrophic stuff will bankrupt you. Well, not really, since Chinese hospitals will ask you to prepay your treatment, so bankruptcy isn’t an option.
    - fludlight 8y ago
      This is how the USA was pre-ACA (but without the prepay requirement). The benefit caps were called lifetime maximums and were generally much higher dollar amounts. Still, they were low enough to bankrupt the average family if someone had a major catastrophe.
      - cobookman 8y ago
        But that person would be alive. Also certain assets are protected in bankruptcy. https://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/debt-management/protect-assets-from-bankruptcy.htm https://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/debt-manage...
  - sureaboutthis 8y ago
    The cost of any serious surgery needs to be weighed against the quality of the work and I would never go for the cheapest guy in some foreign country to cut me open. Frontline, I think, once found that, while there are very good doctors all over the world, when you walk into any hospital in the USA, at least, odds are the doctor in front of you is very good but the odds of that happening in other parts of the world is far lower.
    - ekianjo 8y ago
      > odds are the doctor in front of you is very good but the odds of that happening in other parts of the world is far lower. No, there is also a large bellcurve in terms of treatment outcomes back in the US between choosing the best in one's field and going to any hospital. That's not unique to international medicine at all.
  - metiseoul 8y ago
    You forgot to mention the fact that the medical care in China is atrocious. Most doctors are quacks. Everyone knows not to get majorly sick in China
pytyper2 8y ago
Slow cooked Chinese food is always better.
baybal2 8y ago
My opinion, state of things now: 1. Company registration - rules for company registration for all kinds of incentive zones keep changing monthly. That's insane. 2. Property protection: state has to give assurance that the 2009 style purge will not happen again 3. Personal safety - Shenzhen beats most cities in US on that, at the price of having a police post every 100m 4. Freedom of movement - you have to apply for 3 visas beforehand HK visa, China visa, Macau visa. APEC card works as a universal visa, but god know how one gets it. Last time I applied, the chamber of commerce said it is first time they heard of it. 5. Lifestyle - Shenzhen is one of world's most livable cities already, a head above of Silicon Valley 6. How much money you can make - not enough for somebody working in SV,or London already. A senior engineering cadre nets 25k-30k CNY per month. Cost of living, 7.5k CNY for a bachelor, even if you party hard. So, in the end you get around 3k usd to spare at current CNY price. I don't see much Americans, but for Eastern Europeans... 9 out 10 white people you see in factory districts speak Russian, or some other Slavic language. Lots of Indians, and Africans as well.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  > Shenzhen is one of world's most livable cities already, a head above of Silicon Valley Why do you claim so? I’ve never been to SZ, but if it’s anything like Guangzhou or even Hong Kong, I don’t see how the quality of life there is obviously better than Silicon Valley, especially if you are into outdoor activities and dislike heat and humidity. Or so you mean SZ has much better traffic than SV? Even that I would doubt. Better air quality? SZ is good for China, probably worse than SV. So what are the metrics for “most livable city?” > A senior engineering cadre nets 25k-30k CNY per month. Cost of living, 7.5k CNY for a bachelor, even if you party hard. Those numbers are laughable even for Beijing, I hear SZ is way more expensive still. 30k/month is junior engineer territory, and you are lucky if your one bedroom apartment is only 7500/month in rent.
  - xvf22 8y ago
    I'm curious how havibg never been you find tg the numbers "laughable"? 7500/month is at the high end of the scale.
nbhuik 8y ago
This is a very generic article. I would say made up even. China has a ton of problems. Unfortunately most Hong Kong based analysts spend more time partying in Hong Kong than in southern China. If the west wants to have a long term chance against what is happening in China we really have to stop with this feel good journalism.
- quonn 8y ago
  What do you mean by „have a chance“?
  - nbhuik 8y ago
    This is obviously a long discussion, but in summary the world is changing and if one wants to have a say in that new world one can't pretend that it isn't happening. China is working on all fronts while the west is coming up with excuses why it doesn't matter.
    - exelius 8y ago
      Jack Ma summed it up pretty well — the US spent something close to $15 trillion fighting wars over the last century. China has been taking that money and investing it in building future economic advantage instead because it believes the wars of the future will be economic rather than kinetic. Who do you think has a brighter future?
      - tcbawo 8y ago
        There is waste and fraud everywhere, including China. You can also find anecdotal evidence everywhere. It's impossible to piece this together into a singular narrative.
        luckydata 8y ago
        I think it's fair to say fraud is pervasive in China in a way that's not in many other western countries. Every time I have to do anything with China businesswise I'm reminded of that reality.
bitxbit 8y ago
I really don’t understand the reasons behind building a sea bridge connecting HK and Macau. I can’t help but think this is a project drawn up by some inexperienced policy maker. Other than it being a grand landmark public project, and ignoring cost-benefit, can someone tell me about the engineering aspects of it with all the obvious natural challenges? Edit: appears the project was delayed since 2016 due to various issues.
- Bayart 8y ago
  I'm not knowledgeable about the engineering, but on the political side it's an attempt at integrating HK and Macau physically and make everybody understand it's now PRC land, quite overbearingly. There's been a crackdown on "disent" over there. The government also seems to be betting on pump money into giga-infrastructure (see Belt and Road Initiative) to keep slowing growth at bay.
- toinetoine1 8y ago
  Before the bridge the only way to get from HK to Macau/Zhuhai by land was 4+ hours. Now it's 20 mins. There other bridges being built further up the delta (like the Shenzhen-ZhongShan bridge which will cut a 2 hour drive to 10 mins). You mentioned the cost-benefit. Making is easier for a region of 60 million people to get around obviously has a very high benefit.
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    Gosh, you'd think they'd build a fast train that goes around the Silicon Valley then :)
  - bitxbit 8y ago
    Well, think most people were taking the ferry between the two cities (~1 hour ride). In addition, it appears there's a low daily cap in terms of the number of cars from HK that can enter Macau? Also has Macau developed into something other than a gambling destination? I wasn't initially doubting the cost-benefit (though at first blush I am starting to wonder), but the engineering challenges of this incredible project.
vonnik 8y ago
The title of this article was poorly chosen. China's "Silicon Valley dream", if it has one, is much larger than economic development among the cities of HK, Shenzhen, Macao and Guangzhou. Problems linking those cities, which is what this article is about, are unlikely to block technological development in the country. The tech hubs in Shanghai, Beijing and other fast-moving Chinese cities aren't addressed here. Moreover, even if it's hard to link those southern Chinese cities, each one of them is huge, and booming in different ways. Shenzhen along houses more than 12 million people, while the entire SF Bay Area is around 7 million.
gumby 8y ago
I'm not sure what Silicon Valley has to do with this apart from headline clickbait. The TL;DR is "China is trying to integrate HK, Macau and the rest of the coastal economy into a single conurbation like Kansai or BOS-WAS but it's hard"
beerlord 8y ago
China has an advantage that it has no large ethnic underclasses, and minimal welfare state. But the country would have been undoubtedly better off if the Nationalists won the civil war - and the place ended up like Taiwan.
- khuey 8y ago
  It's far from obvious that a Republic of China that wins the Chinese Civil War would have developed, reformed, and democratized in the same way that the rump ROC on Taiwan has.
Proven 8y ago
tl;dr: socialists suck

104 points by raleighm 8y ago

I think the article could have benefited from some info on the efforts the Shenzhen government has been making on addressing the concerns raised, including setting up the Hong Kong University Hospital in Shenzhen branch and the giant "Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone", a free trade area in Shenzhen with corporate law based on Hong Kong's and very attractive tax benefits. Whether that's enough to assuage Hong Kong'ers cynicism is a different matter, of course ;)

baybal2 8y ago
A thing about healthcare in China: while it is expensive on average, some serious interventions can be up to 20 times cheaper (cancer surgeries, complex fractures and soft tissue trauma, etc.) Emergency medicine is priced predatory though, in bigger cities, appendicitis can cost you $15k+. I myself don't understand American obsession with healthcare, they are free to go anywhere in the world, and it will be cheaper for you than back home.
- abrichr 8y ago
  I don’t have numbers handy, but IIRC a startling number of Americans have never left the country. It’s prohibitively expensive and simply out of reach for many (most?) people.
  - Spearchucker 8y ago
    Flying domestic in the US is crazy expensive when compared with budget airlines in Europe, where (if you look out for it) you can get a flight from London to Rome for £40. International from/to the US is pretty much the same as everyone else in the world pays. This is based on my experience paying for and flying to 32 countries, many more than once. My understanding about why Amercians don't fly international is the same as the UK used to be - not many even have a passport, and even less have an interest in cultures other than their own. For these last two comments I have no data, only hearsay.
    - free652 8y ago
      >Flying domestic in the US is crazy expensive when compared with budget airlines in Europe, where (if you look out for it) you can get a flight from London to Rome for £40. Its $60 for EWR-ATL and I didn't even look hard. $260 EWR-SFO and that's a 5 hour flight.
      - jedmeyers 8y ago
        And KEWR-KATL is 650 nm direct and EGLL-LIRF is slightly over 780 nm. People forget how big the US is. Some states can really be considered separate countries by european standards.
        learc83 8y ago
        Here's a map to illustrate the point. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8fscnh/european_states_overlaid_to_the_map_of_us/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/8fscnh/european_st...
    - dx87 8y ago
      I don't think it's necessarily that we have less interest in cultures besides our own, it's more that we usually plan vacations around wanting to see something, like a national monument, or do something, like party at Mardi Gras. Combine that mindset with the fact that the USA is so big, and there isn't much of a reason to ever leave the country because you'll never be able to see everything it has to offer, plus you don't have to pay to fly across the ocean. And yeah, I personally don't know anyone with a passport, it seems pretty rare here. I think one reason might be because of our neighboring countries. Until a couple of years ago, Canada didn't require a passport or visa when crossing our border, and Mexican border towns have been viewed as unsafe for as long as I can remember, so people didn't really go to Mexico except by cruise ships.
      - Canada 8y ago
        It was more than 10 years ago that all changed. Not only that, US immigration officers even had personal discretion to let us in without proof of citizenship at all, and I'm pretty sure it was the same going North. Sucks how things are now, it just seems unnecessary to me.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    > It’s prohibitively expensive I understand they may think it is, but it's not. And certainly cheaper than having to pay for healthcare back in America for any serious intervention.
    - kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
      There are a lot of Americans who never set foot outside their own state.
      - qubax 8y ago
        That's simply not true. Most americans have traveled outside of their own state. Like 90% of americans. And the 10% who haven't are mostly young children.
      - learc83 8y ago
        The best estimate I can find for that is around 10%, which is also about the same percentage of people who have never left the UK.
  - astura 8y ago
    How is it startling? Some people don't care to leave the country? So what if it's not their thing? Not everyone cares to travel and even if you do, there is a million places to travel within the US, you'll never get bored, there is always something new to see. Why does it bother you that people enjoy doing different things than you in their free time? It's not cost prohibited, discount airlines like Norwegian Air and Air Lingus run non-stop flights from the East coast to Europe for $100-$300. Flights to the Caribbean are not more expensive than domestic flights.
    - alexhutcheson 8y ago
      Cost prohibitive is relative. Flying anywhere is cost prohibitive for a lot of families in the US. Buying 4 or 5 airline tickets gets expensive fast, even on low-cost airlines. The median family vacation in the US is probably a car trip to a destination within 4-5 hours of where the family lives. This isn't as relevant for people without families, but many of them tend to be early in their career, so money and vacation time are bigger constraints.
      - astura 8y ago
        Not buying it. Median family income in households with children in the US is ~$80,000/year, mean is ~$100,500/year[1]. That's enough to afford $1,000 in airline tickets if you wanted to. Millions of people fly to kid-centric destinations like Orlando, Florida a year, and Orlando is incredibly cheap to fly to. It also amazes me how many people bring children on cruises and they even have kid centric cruises. The cost to fly is also at a historic low.[2][3] I see routes I took 10 years ago not increase in price since then. Most people I know are not "travel people" and wouldn't take a "travel vacation" if it was free, so they are not buying airline tickets. Just cuz they aren't buying airline tickets doesn't mean that can't afford them if they wanted to. My point was, if you're going to get onto an airplane it doesn't have to cost you significantly more to travel to a foreign country. Also traveling abroad isn't exactly something one "should" do, some people just don't want to. [1] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-poverty/historical-income-families.html https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p... [2] https://www.cntraveler.com/story/average-domestic-airfares-near-record-lows https://www.cntraveler.com/story/average-domestic-airfares-n... [3] https://sfgate.com/chris-mcginnis/article/Hawaii-South-Africa-fares-hit-historic-lows-13015004.php https://sfgate.com/chris-mcginnis/article/Hawaii-South-Afric...
  - qubax 8y ago
    > It’s prohibitively expensive and simply out of reach for many (most?) people. No it isn't. It's just that we have a huge country stretching from the western pacific ( guam, hawaii, etc ) to the arctic (alaska ) to the caribbean ( puerto rico ). We have a variety of cultures, regions, natural wonders and peoples than any country in the world. Most americans can afford to travel overseas. But we have so many options within the US and its more convenient. Traveling from NYC to hawaii is far more impressive than traveling from NYC to London. And we have the grand canyon, mount denali, yosemite, yellowstone, florida, mount rushmore, new orleans, texas, chicago, endless list of places to visit. Most people, not just americans ) would explore their own nation first and then see the rest of the world. It's generally europeans who brag about traveling and yet they mostly travel between tiny european countries. What's so impressive about someone in luxembourg traveling to france, germany and belgium in an afternoon? It isn't that impressive. But they could claim to have traveled to 3 countries even though those countries are pretty much the same as luxembourg. To put this into perspective, the distance from moscow to berlin is 1100 miles. The distance from NYC to LA is 2700 miles. We just have a lot more land, lot more culture, lot more places to visit.
    - roel_v 8y ago
      "We just have a lot more land, lot more culture" LOL. You know the difference between America and yoghurt, right?
      - qubax 8y ago
        Sure do. And I know we have a lot more diverse culture than say sweden or spain or any european country. Maine to NYC to new orleans to texas to california to the midwest to las vegas and throw in puerto rico, alaska and hawaii. Feel free to show me another country that can match the diversity of peoples, cultures and land that the US has. LOL. Show me another country with the grand canyon, rocky mountains, yosemite, yellow stone park, etc. I love people who laugh at american culture and yet watch our movies, tv shows, listen to our music, etc. So thumb your nose at us while listening to rock n roll, jazz, hip hop, techno, etc and watching game of thrones, friends, southpark, etc. I gave an honest answer to why americans don't travel to foreign countries as much. It's because the US is the size of a continent. We have a lot of things to see here. We can literally travel thousands of miles and still be in the same country. In europe, you can drive through 3 countries in an hour.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Health insurance in China is often flipped compared to how it works in the rest of the world, and definitely America. Instead of having a deductible, you have a benefit cap ($100k for the policy I got working for Microsoft). So the routine stuff winds up being very cheap to free, and the catastrophic stuff will bankrupt you. Well, not really, since Chinese hospitals will ask you to prepay your treatment, so bankruptcy isn’t an option.
  - fludlight 8y ago
    This is how the USA was pre-ACA (but without the prepay requirement). The benefit caps were called lifetime maximums and were generally much higher dollar amounts. Still, they were low enough to bankrupt the average family if someone had a major catastrophe.
    - cobookman 8y ago
      But that person would be alive. Also certain assets are protected in bankruptcy. https://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/debt-management/protect-assets-from-bankruptcy.htm https://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/debt-manage...
- sureaboutthis 8y ago
  The cost of any serious surgery needs to be weighed against the quality of the work and I would never go for the cheapest guy in some foreign country to cut me open. Frontline, I think, once found that, while there are very good doctors all over the world, when you walk into any hospital in the USA, at least, odds are the doctor in front of you is very good but the odds of that happening in other parts of the world is far lower.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    > odds are the doctor in front of you is very good but the odds of that happening in other parts of the world is far lower. No, there is also a large bellcurve in terms of treatment outcomes back in the US between choosing the best in one's field and going to any hospital. That's not unique to international medicine at all.
- metiseoul 8y ago
  You forgot to mention the fact that the medical care in China is atrocious. Most doctors are quacks. Everyone knows not to get majorly sick in China

pytyper2 8y ago

Slow cooked Chinese food is always better.

baybal2 8y ago

My opinion, state of things now: 1. Company registration - rules for company registration for all kinds of incentive zones keep changing monthly. That's insane. 2. Property protection: state has to give assurance that the 2009 style purge will not happen again 3. Personal safety - Shenzhen beats most cities in US on that, at the price of having a police post every 100m 4. Freedom of movement - you have to apply for 3 visas beforehand HK visa, China visa, Macau visa. APEC card works as a universal visa, but god know how one gets it. Last time I applied, the chamber of commerce said it is first time they heard of it. 5. Lifestyle - Shenzhen is one of world's most livable cities already, a head above of Silicon Valley 6. How much money you can make - not enough for somebody working in SV,or London already. A senior engineering cadre nets 25k-30k CNY per month. Cost of living, 7.5k CNY for a bachelor, even if you party hard. So, in the end you get around 3k usd to spare at current CNY price. I don't see much Americans, but for Eastern Europeans... 9 out 10 white people you see in factory districts speak Russian, or some other Slavic language. Lots of Indians, and Africans as well.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
> Shenzhen is one of world's most livable cities already, a head above of Silicon Valley Why do you claim so? I’ve never been to SZ, but if it’s anything like Guangzhou or even Hong Kong, I don’t see how the quality of life there is obviously better than Silicon Valley, especially if you are into outdoor activities and dislike heat and humidity. Or so you mean SZ has much better traffic than SV? Even that I would doubt. Better air quality? SZ is good for China, probably worse than SV. So what are the metrics for “most livable city?” > A senior engineering cadre nets 25k-30k CNY per month. Cost of living, 7.5k CNY for a bachelor, even if you party hard. Those numbers are laughable even for Beijing, I hear SZ is way more expensive still. 30k/month is junior engineer territory, and you are lucky if your one bedroom apartment is only 7500/month in rent.
- xvf22 8y ago
  I'm curious how havibg never been you find tg the numbers "laughable"? 7500/month is at the high end of the scale.

nbhuik 8y ago

This is a very generic article. I would say made up even. China has a ton of problems. Unfortunately most Hong Kong based analysts spend more time partying in Hong Kong than in southern China. If the west wants to have a long term chance against what is happening in China we really have to stop with this feel good journalism.

quonn 8y ago
What do you mean by „have a chance“?
- nbhuik 8y ago
  This is obviously a long discussion, but in summary the world is changing and if one wants to have a say in that new world one can't pretend that it isn't happening. China is working on all fronts while the west is coming up with excuses why it doesn't matter.
  - exelius 8y ago
    Jack Ma summed it up pretty well — the US spent something close to $15 trillion fighting wars over the last century. China has been taking that money and investing it in building future economic advantage instead because it believes the wars of the future will be economic rather than kinetic. Who do you think has a brighter future?
    - tcbawo 8y ago
      There is waste and fraud everywhere, including China. You can also find anecdotal evidence everywhere. It's impossible to piece this together into a singular narrative.
      - luckydata 8y ago
        I think it's fair to say fraud is pervasive in China in a way that's not in many other western countries. Every time I have to do anything with China businesswise I'm reminded of that reality.

bitxbit 8y ago

I really don’t understand the reasons behind building a sea bridge connecting HK and Macau. I can’t help but think this is a project drawn up by some inexperienced policy maker. Other than it being a grand landmark public project, and ignoring cost-benefit, can someone tell me about the engineering aspects of it with all the obvious natural challenges? Edit: appears the project was delayed since 2016 due to various issues.

Bayart 8y ago
I'm not knowledgeable about the engineering, but on the political side it's an attempt at integrating HK and Macau physically and make everybody understand it's now PRC land, quite overbearingly. There's been a crackdown on "disent" over there. The government also seems to be betting on pump money into giga-infrastructure (see Belt and Road Initiative) to keep slowing growth at bay.
toinetoine1 8y ago
Before the bridge the only way to get from HK to Macau/Zhuhai by land was 4+ hours. Now it's 20 mins. There other bridges being built further up the delta (like the Shenzhen-ZhongShan bridge which will cut a 2 hour drive to 10 mins). You mentioned the cost-benefit. Making is easier for a region of 60 million people to get around obviously has a very high benefit.
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  Gosh, you'd think they'd build a fast train that goes around the Silicon Valley then :)
- bitxbit 8y ago
  Well, think most people were taking the ferry between the two cities (~1 hour ride). In addition, it appears there's a low daily cap in terms of the number of cars from HK that can enter Macau? Also has Macau developed into something other than a gambling destination? I wasn't initially doubting the cost-benefit (though at first blush I am starting to wonder), but the engineering challenges of this incredible project.

vonnik 8y ago

The title of this article was poorly chosen. China's "Silicon Valley dream", if it has one, is much larger than economic development among the cities of HK, Shenzhen, Macao and Guangzhou. Problems linking those cities, which is what this article is about, are unlikely to block technological development in the country. The tech hubs in Shanghai, Beijing and other fast-moving Chinese cities aren't addressed here. Moreover, even if it's hard to link those southern Chinese cities, each one of them is huge, and booming in different ways. Shenzhen along houses more than 12 million people, while the entire SF Bay Area is around 7 million.

gumby 8y ago

I'm not sure what Silicon Valley has to do with this apart from headline clickbait. The TL;DR is "China is trying to integrate HK, Macau and the rest of the coastal economy into a single conurbation like Kansai or BOS-WAS but it's hard"

beerlord 8y ago

China has an advantage that it has no large ethnic underclasses, and minimal welfare state. But the country would have been undoubtedly better off if the Nationalists won the civil war - and the place ended up like Taiwan.

khuey 8y ago
It's far from obvious that a Republic of China that wins the Chinese Civil War would have developed, reformed, and democratized in the same way that the rump ROC on Taiwan has.

Proven 8y ago

tl;dr: socialists suck